Web-exclusive Q&A

No one knows what the future holds for Lost’s band of castaways—even the show’s stars are kept in the dark most of the time. Still, we wouldn’t let Lost’s Matthew Fox leave the lunch table until he gave us a few predictions of what’s ahead for his character, Dr. Jack Shephard. In this exclusive Q&A with GQ.com, Fox talks about leadership, violence, and whether or not Jack’s about to have a "Bonnie and Clyde thing" with Michelle Rodriguez’s Ana Lucia.

Talk to me a little bit about Jack’s character arc. Where do you think he’s been, and where do you see him going as this season progresses

I think there’s a couple things going on. Most of the first season was about Jack embracing his role as the leader of this cast. One of the interesting dynamics about human nature is that in a really difficult situation, a small group of people will basically elect a leader. They need that. They need it so much that if nobody’s willing to step forward, they’ll almost elect somebody. And that’s kind of what happened with Jack. He didn’t really want that position, but he was almost elected into it. For a lot of reasons. After the crash, because of his medical instincts, he was the first one to snaps fingers snap out of the chaos and the shock. He was the one that people were looking at, in the smoke and the fire and the haze, and he was running around and he was barking orders, and he knew what he was doing, and in the first moment, everybody was like, "That guy is a leader."

All around him, people are bleeding and dying…

And they’re in shock. People are frozen, and they don’t know what to do, and they’re fuckin’ looking for somebody, and suddenly this guy in a suit is running around yelling at people, and he’s a doctor. And people needed that. In desperate circumstances, that has to happen. So most of that first year was about why Jack—because of his own issues, and his dad issues, and all that stuff—was so reluctant to take that position on. And by the end of the year, he took it on. But in human nature, the next step, the minute you’ve elected a leader, is to start tearing him apart. To start secondguessing him. To start usurping his power. To start going behind his back. And that’s what this year is about. You’re starting to see that happen. You’re seeing that happening between Jack and Locke, even though Locke was almost instrumental in putting Jack there in the first place. Locke put him there because Locke, we’ve seen—nobody’s sure about where Locke falls down, least of all Jack. Jack’s very suspicious of Locke. Jack is a man of science. He’s a man of logic. Part of the reason he’s sort of the central figure of this story is that this is a bizarre place, and bizarre shit is happening, and you as an audience are going, "Are you fucking serious" That’s Jack, too. Even though he’s witnessing this stuff with his own two eyes, he’s trying to make sure it fits into our form of what we believe reality to be. We all define reality as having certain rules, and this island is clearly breaking some of those rules. But Jack is holding on. Locke, on the other hand, because he’s experienced this miracle, he’s the first one to be seduced by the island. He’s being drawn into the island. And Jack senses that on some level.

Locke’s bought the ticket, and he’s taking the ride.

And because he’s so willing to go on the ride, Jack thinks he’s insane. In life, anybody that doesn’t see reality the way we see reality We think they’re nuts. And we also think they’re dangerous. And Jack definitely thinks of Locke as potentially dangerous, because he thinks that he’s losing his grip on this situation. And he also senses on some level that this island has a darkness and that Locke is headed towards it. That he wants it. And he’s seeing Locke pick off all these characters around him—he’s manipulating; he’s making little individual oneonone relationships with them in which he gives them something and makes them feel like they owe him something in return. And Jack is aware of that.

Yeah. It keeps happening. Like with Charlie.

Or Claire.

Do you think you’re more likely to subscribe to Jack’s way of thinking, or Locke’s

I think I’d be somewhere in between. I agree with some of Locke’s willingness to redefine reality for himself. Because he has to. And so does Jack. If Jack’s gonna be a leader, and if he’s gonna retain his ability to be effective, he’s gonna have to become more willing to take that leap of faith. He has to, or he’ll become completely ineffectual. And that’s part of the journey for him, this year. I mean, he ultimately did push the button. And he pushed it, mainly, in the end, because Locke almost begged him to. Jack didn’t really believe in the necessity of pushing the button at that particular moment. But I think since then, he’s almost accepted it as something that’s part of their lives. And now if somebody’s not gonna push that button, he’d be worried about them. Because he’s become conditioned on some level, like everybody has. That’s part of their lives. The button needs to be pushed. There’s still a big part of him that’s like, "What the fuck happens if we don’t push that goddamn button" But this is a man who’s seen the thing in the woods. This is a man who’s come right up against the thing in the woods. This is a man who’s seen the thing pull Locke down the hole into the ground. He’s seen shit that’s so clearly outside of the realm of an operating room, outside everything he understands about the way the world is supposed to work. So part of that denial is a lag, I think. He’s a very bright guy, and eventually he’s going to accept the things he has to accept.

He’s sort of processing these things at his own speed.

Absolutely.

One of the things I find fascinating about the show is that it stages these debates between cold rationalism and absolute faith in the unknown without really taking a position one way or the other. The philosophical tone of it isn’t absolutist.

Completely. The reason why we have these characters that are two sides of the same coin—the reason we see Jack and Locke having the faithandreason argument—is that there is no answer. The important part is asking the question. It’s in asking the question and looking for the answer that we find strength. It’s not just science and it’s not just faith; it’s that gray area in between that’s important. That’s another thing I like about the show: There are really no good guys and no bad guys. Which is something we all understand as we get older. When we’re kids, we need to believe in good guys and bad guys, but in the process of growing up we realize that there’s no such thing. I mean, the idea of the white knight on the horse is just a fallacy. And in Jack, I get an opportunity to play this guy who’s supposed to be that guy, but he’s really not, and he’s much more complex and much more human because of it. At his base, he’s the guy who’ll throw himself in front of a bus to save somebody, but there’s also a part of him that wants vengeance. He has the potential to go into a rage, where he’d want to kill.

To some extent, you can already see that happening, I think.

He’s starting to become irrationally consumed with the idea of the Others, because he’s also a control freak. Control, and inflicting his will upon his own life, is a big part of who this guy is. And given that, I think this situation with Michelle Rodriguez, this Ana Lucia/Jack thing, could almost become… I’m not sure about this, this is just a theory of mine, but it would be really cool if that becomes… You know when you hear about these young lovers going off on killing sprees and shit like that

Like a Natural Born Killers kind of thing

Exactly—that Bonnie and Clyde thing. These two people who are attached to something that they both consciously know is irrational, but they’ve found an ally in it, and they almost fall a little bit in love with each other through that idea Of supporting each other

It becomes a meandyouagainsttheworld thing…

And it becomes like, "I’m not gonna call you on it, and you’re not gonna call me on it. And in fact we’re gonna do the opposite; we’re gonna make that idea bigger by the two of us committing to it," y’know That kind of thing could be really cool for sort of the dark middle part of this year—where Jack and her are becoming sort of obsessive about this, for very different reasons.

Do you think she’s the Jack of the tailsection survivors

Well, that’s part of it. Part of the reason they’re beginning to bond already is that they’ve both sort of cast as the leader, and they’ve both had not such an easy time in that position.

It’s complex…

It is complex. But one of the best moments I got to play is the moment in which Jack sees Ana Lucia for the first time since the airport, and the circumstances in which he sees her. She’s shot frickin’ Shannon. Accidentally, but shot her. And Eko takes Jack out into the jungle, and Jack’s already realizing, like, "Ana Lucia—that’s the girl, that’s the girl that I met. Is that gonna be her" And then when he sees her, he knows it. She sees him and realizes that he’s the one they’ve been talking about, and from across, like, twenty yards in the jungle, it’s this incredible wordless moment. It was just so cool, because to me, it was like, how sad, y’know These two people shared a drink at a bar and had the potential to share another one and flirt in the way that people in the world go about making their connection. And suddenly they find themselves, like six weeks later, meeting again in the jungle on an island somewhere in the South Pacific. They have no fuckin’ idea where they are, and all this shit has transpired in between, and that moment, there was just a sadness in it that was so real.—ALEX PAPPADEMAS

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